Everyone took the hint of having breakfast early and we were pretty much all at the stage of a second or third cup of coffee when Dad came in towing in his wake a youth that I’m guessing is our ringer, Mikel Lamba.

“Good, you’re all here,” he started, “I’ll let you all introduce yourselves, this is Mikel who’ll be riding with us this week. He does speak some English and I don’t want to hear German used to exclude him, for this week he and his father are part of BC – Schauff. I’ll leave you to get acquainted, remember, ready to ride out front at nine thirty sharp please.”

Dad departed leaving Senõr Mikel Lamba standing slightly awkwardly in front of us.

“Hows you doing man, Josh Waugh,” the Tynesider opened the batting offering a hand, “big lad over there’s Jamie, Sal, Lor, Geth, Mand, Claire,” he pointed at each of us in turn, “Daz, Gret, Tali and the squirt on the end is...”
“Not amused,” I interrupted, I offered Mikel my hand, “Gaby Bond.”
“I have heard of the famous Senõrita Bond of course, nice to meet you all.”
“You want coffee,” Daz offered.
“Si, that would be good,” he agreed pulling a vacant chair over to our ‘nest’.
 

I suppose you want the low down on Senõr Lamba, well he’s seventeen, no girlfriend (much to Claire’s delight!), he comes from Sevilla which is down south somewhere and came in seventh at the Spanish champs the other week. He learnt his English on a summer school thing in Sheffield last year. Apparently someone in the Spanish federation put his name forward when Dad asked if they could recommend someone to fill Cav’s spot.

“Sugar,” Mand cussed, “we need to get changed.”
“Bum,” I agreed checking my own timepiece.
“You got somewhere to change man?” Josh enquired of Mikel.
“With my father I think.”
 

The forecourt of the hotel was at least in the shade this morning as Darren, Dad and a small olive skinned chap I presume is Mikel’s father handed out our bikes. No time trial bikes this week and not a huge amount of spares either, a couple of which were already installed atop the BMW along with a few spare wheels. Once everyone had computers installed, tyres checked and were stocked with bidons and snacks, Dad called for our attention.

“Okay folks, steady ride piano today, I’m reliably informed by the hotel that once we clear the coast the roads are fairly quiet but Caro will go with Olivier here,” he indicated Mikel’s father, “in his car in front, Angela will be with me in the BMW and Darren and Kat will meet us about midway at Santestaban where we’ll have a short comfort break. Josh your in charge okay?”
“Er sure Boss man.”
“Questions?”
“How far Herr Bond?” Tal enquired.
“Should be about one twenty, back here about one for lunch, that it, okay lets get moving, and remember to drink plenty.”

And so we set off, a cacophony of cleats being engaged, brakes inadvertently being applied and good natured bickering. The Lamba’s car is a white Seat Alhambra people carrier, a VW Sharan in all but badges, certainly easy enough to spot amongst the plethora of small Euroboxes the Spanish seem to favour in these parts. Last year, in Italy, the UK based riders spent the first couple of days getting their heads around riding on the right, at least this time everyones comfortable with that element, instead, apart from Mikel, we were learning the Spanish signs and particularly junction priorities.
 

It was only about three K out to the motorway we arrived on then another couple out through the vowel laden village of Oiartzun where we departed civilisation and started the steady climb of the Añakadi Bidea. With a dozen of us riding in pairs there was ample time at the back to recover, Josh calling the changes so no one did too much on the front. The road was soon twisting about as we climbed, not steeply but constantly and the traffic was indeed quite light.

We might be going uphill but we were maintaining a steady twenty five kph without putting anyone in trouble. How things have changed from last year, I guess everyone’s matured, got stronger but also gained confidence, especially the BC girls. The first sign of a crack was when the road reared through a couple of hairpins and continued above at a higher percentage.

“Easy Bond,” Josh requested.

I looked behind to find the previously tidy group looking somewhat dishevelled. With an inward sigh I raised a finger in acknowledgement and slipped down an extra sprocket. Which is how I ended up swapping Gret as riding partner for Mikel.

“You would like to be gone,” he stated rather than asked in English better than I use these days.
“Yeah well, just because I can doesn’t mean I should.”
“True enough,” he agreed.
“You said earlier you’d heard of me?”
“The papers, how you say, magazine of cycling, they report the races all about not just Espana and the daughter of Jenny Bond gets extra mention when she beats the men.”
“Not always,” I told him.
“But many times I think.”
“I guess,” I agreed reaching for my already well depleted bidon.
“Plus I did research when I was offered this chance,” he grinned with a quirk of unruly black eyebrow.
“So you aren’t in a race team?”
“They are not so many in Espana and in Sevilla only one for the senior riders. So I ride for my club, see?” he stretched his jersey out so I could see the lettering across his chest.
“I guess there aren’t so many at home either,” I observed.
“In England?”
“Germany, I’m officially German now, hence the jersey,” I hinted.
“But you are English yes?”
“It’s complicated, I was born there but we’ve been in Germany for a while and then there were issues with BC, long story short, it just made sense to become a citizen.”
“You will go back?”
“To visit yes but I guess Germany is home now so I can’t see me leaving anytime soon. What about you?”
“After college I like to travel I think, maybe if I can get a contract with a how you say, develop team to race, I’d like that.”

I used to think that would be me, finish school then go to France or Belgium to ‘learn’ the trade before moving up into the pro ranks, travel the world racing bikes. As Drew that’s all I ever thought about but now, the Gaby me, well its a different path and I’m not even sure its what I want to do with my life. No, my dreams of fame were irrevocably killed off by one tiny letter replacing another.
 

Josh called another change before we reached the pair of hairpins that raised us up into the trees and the small plateau that marks the top of the climb from the coast. The respite was short lived as we quickly started the descent and a pell mell descent through the turns down to the Rio Bidasoa. The discipline of the climbing was long gone by the time we reached Lesaka as everyone seemed to want to be first to the bottom.

At the river we turned right to follow both it and a newish road taking traffic inland, not that it was hugely busy but we weren’t the only ones glad of the loops of old road which we had to use to avoid the tunnels. Josh was back in control and Mikel and I continued talking as we climbed up the valley to Santesteban.

Santesteban isn’t a big place, the architecture almost alpine in styling, well I guess it is a bit hilly round here. The likeness to alpine terrain isn’t reduced by the mixture of forest and green meadows, a far cry from the torrid heat and desert of the central plain. Yes its quite hot today but less so away from the coast and they must’ve had rain overnight as there were some sizeable puddles on the way up the valley.

We rode through the town, across the Rio Ezkurra and easily spotted Kat and Darren parked in a supermarket car park on the edge of the town. My computer was claiming fifty K, Dad’s either over estimated our ride or we’ve got a longer part two. On the other hand we’d only been riding for about an hour and forty so if the rest goes as well we’ll be back pretty much as predicted.

Several of us made use of the supermarket’s toilet facilities, I grabbed a bag of Gummi bears for later. Angela had clearly been busy earlier as she produced a couple of plates of sliced bread sandwiches which were consumed in moments. Bottles were refilled, sun screen reapplied, Kat attended to a couple of minor injury niggles and in less than thirty minutes, well twenty actually we were on our way again.
 

According to the sign it’s twenty seven kilometres to the Calle de Carreterra, the top of this climb. We settled back into a kilometre swallowing cadence however heading both south and the time approaching high noon meant it was getting pretty warm. Zips were undone, sleeves pushed up and glasses removed, none of that made a great deal of difference and a couple of steeper ramps didn’t help.

I reckon there were about seven kilometres to the summit when the gradient really started to get more serious, not silly or even ten percent but an energy sapping six or seven. The road was quite narrow in places as it bobbled upwards, we had to single out to squeeze past a beer truck at one point. Then finally we were there, a few buildings gathered around the summit made up Ezkurra and then we were thankfully going downhill.

This side was much twistier and much like the earlier descent it quickly became a fairly serious business of getting down quickly. Dad had warned us we would be turning off at some point down the hill but even so it was a bit of a surprise when we reached it. There were some smoking brakes is all I’ll say.
 

Well I turned round and rejoined the others just ahead of the BMW, okay I overshot, satisfied? Not that I or anyone else got much respite, the road up to Calle Mayor started steep and continued much the same after it entered the forest. Well at least we were out of the sun for a bit.

Anyway any semblance of order was gone, it was everyone for themselves as the road darted back and forth but always upwards. We were soon spread out over several hundred metres, having started at the back I used the less able climbers as targets as I ground my way up the lane. When we broke out of the trees just shy of the summit only Mikel, Josh and Mand were still ahead of me but not by much.

What goes up must come down – well sometimes, anyhow no one seemed in too much of a rush this time and those in front pretty much freewheeled down through the village named for the summit. It’s less steep this side which allowed a regrouping before we started the descent of the Rio Urumea gorge. The road followed the river quite closely then without warning we made a turn and were met by a steep ramp which took us high above the wooded slopes of the gorge.

My legs were well fatigued by now, they felt like rubber as I tried to power up the incline. It was a losing battle, one that only Josh seemed to be winning, but thankfully going up was only temporary, after a fairly tight bend things slackened off and once again we reassembled. It was less than two K by my computer before the shallow roller coaster slipped into a hairpinned descent back to the river below.

Things were much calmer now and our road captain managed to reassemble some sort of order as we started a dozen more easy kilometres of chasing the Urumea towards the sea. It was certainly getting warmer, but with a less humid heat then, as suddenly as we’d left it this morning, we were back almost in sight of the Atlantic. The noise of traffic came as a bit of a surprise and hung around us as we went over, under and around the Madrid bound motorway on our way back into Lezo.
 

Of course the back room staff were already returned and true to instruction Kat had a list of appointments taped to the side of the van.

“Where’re we doing this?” Mand enquired.
“Think she’s setting up around the back,” Darren suggested taking her steed from her.
“Al fresco eh?” Daz suggested.
“I am not stripping off in public!”
“Don’t be such a drama queen Gab,” Tal told me, “I quite fancy getting all naked in the sunshine.”
“Until you get burn’t in places you really don’t want burnt,” Lor chimed in.
“Don’t worry ladies,” Angela stated, “no one will see you, she has borrowed the screens and the big sun shade.”
“Hmm,” I grunted.
“Oh live a bit Bond,” Gret chided.
 

Kat had gone strictly alphabetical and guess what, Bond trumps the rest so after the quickest of showers I made my way down to Kat’s spacious temporary massage parlour.

“You sure no one can see in?”
“Unless they’ve got x-ray eyes.”
“So why are we doing it out here again?”
She started ticking off on her fingers, “number one, its cooler than inside, number two, its cooler than inside and number three...”
“Its cooler than inside,” I finished, “okay I get it.”
“Right then, strip Miss Bond!”
 

Maddy Bell © 24.03.2018